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Sunday, 17 February 2013

I've finally read some Dr Seuss books!

Having spent far too much money recently on buying some more books for the kids, I finally got to let them pick what they wanted to read from a nice new pile (of second-hand books, mainly - my bank account is already crying a little!). I was quite surprised to find that Caitlin and Lewis both went for a Dr Seuss book; Caitlin for The Cat in the Hat and Lewis for I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!. I wasn't surprised for any bad reasons - it's just that I'd also bought Giraffes Can't Dance!, one of the World Book Day books this year, and I thought Caitlin would have been straight onto that one, seeing as she loves giraffes and dancing! I think on these books they loved the illustration on the front, and might even have been a little aware of the cat in the hat - I'm not sure! The illustrations in both books were awesome and really engaging.

This celebration of the joys of reading encourages us to open our eyes and take pride in our reading, so we'll learn lots of stuff and end up succeeding!

We started off with The Cat in the Hat, which went down really well with the children. They identified really strongly with the idea of the naughty cat and things 1 and 2, and were able to answer questions at the end about whether they would have told their mum if something like that had happened to them. For the record, they would have kept quiet! Lewis especially loved the idea of being able to carry all those items - I had great fun getting him to find certain things.

We then went on to I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!. This one started off okay - I was able to test the children on their colours at the beginning, They also liked trying to close one eye at a time! I had to stop a little for that bit, seeing as I can only see out of one eye, but they loved trying - Caitlin could only manage to close her left eye, haha! After this point, it went downhill though. Lewis lost attention, and while Caitlin was listening, she didn't seem all that engaged with it. I think this is down to a couple of reasons. Firstly, for books aimed at their age range, I did find them fairly long, so expecting Lewis, particularly, to sit through 2 of them was probably asking a little much. Then, particularly with I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!, I thought there were possibly a few too many American references for them to grasp. They barely know about English geography, let alone being able to grasp Mississippi!

I had a quick scan of blogs talking about Dr Seuss and found this one, which gave a list of good Seuss links. There were 2 that I think Caitlin and Lewis will love - Seussville and The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!. I'm babysitting for an hour or so tomorrow, so I'll probably try them out. I've also recently discovered the Me Books app, which features loads of Ladybird Classics, and is really interactive. I can't wait to see if it manages to keep them quiet!

8 comments:

Woop woop! I was drawn to this post mostly because I also have never read any Dr Seuss books! I was never given them as a child and I have to admit when I was young, they never really appealed to me. I also saw the film years and years ago and hated it! But I've thinking a lot more about Dr Seuss lately, a lot of quotes from him keep popping up on the internet, and they're really great! So I'm kind of curious. :)

Fair enough! I can't say they really appealed to me either, but my niece and nephew were drawn to them, which seems important. I didn't know there was a film - I should have realised! The Cat in the Hat was good, but for a reason I can't put my finger on, I'm not overly keen on them. I know they're really popular, but there seemed to be something missing. If I ever realise what it is, I'll let you know! They do seem very good for children just learning to read though - learning colours, using the story to identify what's in the picture (or vice versa), etc. Have you managed to read anything of his since?

Haha thanks.Interesting, maybe that's the same reason that they didn't appeal to me as a youngster...I'm not sure if this is it exactly, but some impressions I got of it almost seemed a bit...dark and malignant? But I have absolutely no idea how that idea formed in the first place!

Nope I haven't read any at all, except for some cool internet quotes. :)